Poem: Take It Quickly

The panic of signing that first flat lease in a strange country where you know no one and don't speak the language.

Take It Quickly

PI’m sitting in the realty office
under the lights
those incessant
fluorescent
lights
Wondering how anyone can think
in such a glare
Conversations from four desks
in three languages
crossing like shots down the line
in a doubles match
Phrases drop from the brilliance
lob-shots, somewhere up there
three plus one
Chodov
won’t last
won’t wait---no fridge
twelve thousand
no, wait, it’s already gone
I sag and try to think
where Chodov is
but it’s the lights I feel
Not wanting to look at flats
desperately not wanting
to look at flats
Wanting to have a flat
desperately wanting
to have a flat
Quiet, with birds softly chirping
near the tram line
and maybe a terrace
that I can afford
with my writing going well